Andrew's Baptism, 5/1/2011

Andrew was baptized this past Sunday at St. James' Episcopal Church in Warrenton. Our church is very special to us. It's where I was baptized, where Phil and I were married, and where Philip was also baptized. Our priest, Father Chris, performed Andrew's baptism which was a wonderful surprise as he has been in recovery since suffering from a very serious pulmonary embolism about 6 weeks ago and has not been leading services. Father Eric was originally scheduled to perform the baptism which was fine with us, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a bit disappointed that Father Chris wouldn't be the one to baptism Andrew as he married Phil and I and also baptized Philip. Needless to say finding out he would be leading last Sunday's service was a very happy moment for me as he is very special to us and it means a lot to have him involved in this very important piece of Andrew's spiritual life.

We had asked Phil's cousin Brandon to be Andrew's godfather and he drove up the night before from South Carolina to be a part of the day. My sister Natalie was asked to be Andrew's godmother.  Prior to attending the service, we had a fantastic breakfast at the church cafe. Afterwards the service got underway and both boys were fantastic. I couldn't believe how patient and well-behaved they were. Andrew was all smiles and even took a nap during the sermon and Philip sat quietly and listened and looked at his books. When it was time for the baptism to be performed, Andrew was the perfect candidate. He didn't cry at all when the water was poured over his head, he even seemed to enjoy it. Not surprising at all since he loves baptism. He would have probably been content to splash around in the font if we had let him! 

After the service, we hosted our family and friends back at our house for a luncheon of baked ziti, salad, and cake. It was a great day and we were so blessed to have our family and friends there to share in our celebration.

Brandon and Andrew

With Fr. Chris, after the service.

Andrew's baptism cake, made by Phil's mom

Andrew with his grandmas

 

Four generations

Andrew with his Great Grandma

Andrew with Phil's parents

Andrew with my mom

Checking out his cake

Our family

Andrew and mommy

Andrew and my dad

Andrew with Uncle Greg and his daddy

Andrew and his buddy Brandon

Hanging out in his jammies after a busy day

Big Boy Bed!

Almost all remnants of Philip's babyhood are gone from his bedroom. His crib, the only bed he's ever known, has been replaced by a full-blown, twin-sized bed, complete with new Toy Story bedding. He loves it! I'm the only one who's a bit teary-eyed!

Look, mom, one hand!

8 months old and already a show off.

Okay, make a liar out of me then!

Andrew has slept straight through the night in 10-12 hour stretches for the past four nights.

And in the words of Forrest Gump: "That's all I have to say about that."


More to come if there's more to talk about in the future. For now I'm crossing my fingers, holding my breath, and knocking on wood that I won't look back at this post and laugh.

Andrew: Months 6-8!

Okay, so I kind of slacked off since Andrew's six month update. We're almost at his 8 month milestone and I totally forgot to talk about his 7th. Whoops! I blame being so busy with two kids, especially our toddler-almost-preschooler who has been going through one change after another in the past two months, from learning to sleep without a sleep aid, to climbing out of his crib and moving to a "big boy bed," and don't forget potty-training. We've been busy, to say the least. But so has Andrew!

He's changed so much in the last two months!

• He now has two teeth. The first one he got right around 6 months. The second right around 7.
• He can now go from being on his belly to pushing up into a sitting position. He's been doing this for a couple of weeks now.
• Within the past week, he's decided he's no longer content with the view from the floor, and he's started pulling himself up into a standing position. This one I can't even believe as Philip was not doing that at this age. But so far Andrew is doing everything sooner so I guess it just goes along with the territory of being the little brother!
• He's eating all kinds of purees now and we just started giving him little Gerber Puffs to give self-feeding a try. He loves to eat from a spoon, but his fine motor skills still need some work when it comes to getting the Puffs from the high chair tray into his mouth.
• Sleeping... yeah. Some nights are good. He might do as much as an eight hour stretch on a rare night, say 8 PM to 4 AM. Other nights maybe six. But those nights are not as frequent as the nights where he's up every 3-4 hours or sometimes even more often than that. I am so desperate for the sleep through the night milestone. I was patient up until the 6 month mark because that's when Philip started doing 10-12 hour stretches. Now I'm just panicked and a wee bit pissed off that we're not there yet. 
• Favorite things: 
• He loves to crawl. He's still pulling himself around on the floor mostly, or doing a modified frog kinda hop. Not totally up on his knees yet. He's not so interested in being confined, but he will tolerate jumping in the Jumperoo for a small stretch of time. Anything that helps build up his strength!
• He loves his big brother and his big brother's toys! Philip has become less enthused about the latter, especially when everything Andrew finds goes straight into his mouth. For the most part, Philip is good about sharing, but we definitely have to remind him. A lot.
• He loves playing with balls.
• He loves the vacuum cleaner. When I get it out while he's on the floor, he all but attacks it, moving as fast as he can to try to catch it. So funny!
• He loves to eat. It's so funny how he opens his mouth wide in anticipation of a spoonful of baby food now. Or other things! We went out for ice cream at the Carousel over the weekend and decided to let him try a couple of bits of vanilla ice cream. The look of anticipation on his face was hilarious!
• He loves to hear his own voice. He's loud, that's for sure. He'll babble  "ah-ba-ba-ba-ba!" forever. He also does a funny noise where he sucks in his breath and makes an "eeeheeeeeee!" sound over and over again.
• The stroller and sitting in the grocery cart seat. He loves going for rides in both!
• Not-so-favorite Things:
• Sleep. LOL. Well, he is on a better nap pattern now, taking two approximately one hour naps per day and a half hour in the evening if we let him.
• The car. He's getting better about car rides, thank goodness, but it's still not his favorite thing. Not by a long shot.
• Having his nose wiped. Both boys have had one runny nose after another and Andrew absolutely hates it when I come after him with a tissue.
• Having something taken away from him that he was playing with but that he wasn't supposed to have. He's already throwing a fit when that happens. It's hilarious and kind of scary at the same time. I thought babies at this age were mostly still oblivious to that kind of thing!

 He's definitely a hands-on, physical baby. His name Andrew means "strong and manly" and it's definitely a good fit. While he may not be manly yet, oh my gosh is this kid strong. His legs are like solid baby muscle under a layer of baby blubber and sometimes getting things away from him takes a little more effort than one would think, things like, oh, my hair, which he's constantly grabbing. Ouch.

I'm sure there are things I'm missing, but that's all that comes to mind right now. In short, he's changing every day and doing everything sooner than Philip did. He won't be a baby for much longer at this rate which kind of breaks my heart, although I'm looking forward to seeing the toddler he becomes and watching how his relationship with Philip develops and changes. I can't wait until the day when they are really able to play together like little buddies!

Standing?!

Andrew started pulling up into a standing position on his own last week. Waaayyyyy sooner than Philip ever did! I blame having a big brother to model after. This baby is fast on his way to toddlerhood. :-(

"Do the Potty Dance!"

Last weekend I woke up Saturday morning and decided I was not interested in changing diapers on two boys that day. So I told Philip we were going bottomless and using the potty instead of going potty in the diaper. I brought hiw green frog potty down into the living room and stripped him of his pants and diaper. Within a few minutes, he peed all over the end table. But the next time he had to pee, he went and sat on the potty. And he went. And he did it every time after that. Even going number 2 on the potty, twice! And it was really that easy.

Okay, so I wouldn't go so far as saying he's potty trained. Not quite completely. But he has done SO GREAT this past week with going on the potty. When we're at home and he's bare-bottomed, he gets up from whatever he's doing and goes, without so much as an announcement. He's only had two accidents in the house since we started the whole process. Adding underwear into the mix made things more complicated. I think that's where we had problems in the first place when we attempted potty training last month. The underwear gave him a false sense of protection and he would just go in them. Now that he has an understanding of what needing to go feels like and what happens when he doesn't make it to the potty, he's learning how to hold it until he can get to a potty. When he has the underwear on, we make him take potty breaks or ask him if he needs to go. Just today he told us for the first time he had to go while he was wearing his underwear so we could help him get them off. We were so proud!

Going out is trickier. He's afraid of public toilets so we take a potty everywhere we go and he sits on it in the car and goes before we go in anywhere and before we get back in the car. So far this is working well but getting used to going on a big potty is something we'll need to conquer before too long as traveling with a potty in the trunk is kinda... gross. When we go out he wears his cloth training pants or underwear with a pull-up over them to contain any messes. I like the underwear under the pull-up because it still allows him the sensation of being wet and doesn't feel like a diaper. At home he wears his training pants or underwear and he's still wearing a diaper for naps and bedtime. We have him use the potty right before his nap and he's been waking up dry pretty consistently. Yay!

All in all, so far potty training hasn't been nearly as terrifying as I had thought it would be. Of all things parenting related, this has been the one thing I've been most worried about and fearful of. But Philip's really making it easier on us that I could have imagined! We're so proud of our big boy and so excited that he will be potty-trained and ready for pre-school in the fall!